Even If My Marriage Is Falling Apart

I Was Asked By An Editor To Consider Writing Something About An American Inventor. I Asked Him If He Knew Who Invented The Computer. He Said He Didn't. In That Case, I Told Him, I Should Write A Book About John Vincent Atanasoff.

My Characters Never Die Screaming In Rage. They Attempt To Pull Themselves Back Together And Go On. And That's Basically A Conservative View Of Life.

Most Of My Childhood Revolved Around Wondering When We Would Be Blown Up By The Russians. I Couldn't Stand The News, I Knew That If The Missile Were Launched, Mortality Would Arrive In Half An Hour, So I Spent A Lot Of My Childhood Feeling That I Was 30 Minutes From Being Dead.

Twenty-five, He Was. Twenty-five Tomorrow. Some Years The Snow Had Melted For His Birthday, But Not This Year, And So It Had Been A Long Winter Full Of Cows.

When I Went To First Grade And The Other Children Said That Their Fathers Were Farmers, I Simply Didn't Believe Them. I Agreed In Order To Be Polite, But In My Heart I Knew That Those Men Were Impostors, As Farmers And As Fathers, Too. In My Youthful Estimation, Laurence Cook Defined Both Categories. To Really Believe That Others Even Existed In Either Category Was To Break The First Commandment.